scholarly journals Is an alibi a paper shield? An investigation of the factors that influence alibi credibility judgments

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Newspaper Article ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Physical Evidence ◽  
Evidence Strength ◽  
Primary Determinant ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
Life Inventory

Alibis are a potentially powerful piece of evidence for innocence, but examination of criminal cases suggests that honestly offered alibis may fail to prevent wrongful convictions. Currently, little is known regarding how evaluators judge the credibility of alibis. Three studies investigated the effect of alibi moral desirability, suspect race (White/Indigenous Canadian), alibi evidence strength, and Authoritarianism on participants’ legal judgments. Participants read a fictitious police file (Experiment 1: N = 300; Experiment 2: N = 286) or newspaper article (Experiment 3: N =235) and rated a male suspect’s/defendant’s statement honesty, alibi accuracy, and the likelihood of his guilt, among other dependent measures, then completed the Authoritarianism-Conservatism-Traditionalism scale (ACT; Duckitt et al., 2010) and, in Experiment 3, the Revised Religious Life Inventory (Hills et al., 2005). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked to sign a petition supporting the suspect. Results indicated that providing an alibi can be beneficial or detrimental to the suspect, depending on contextual factors and the narrative itself. In Experiments 1 and 2, alibi moral desirability affected participants’ responses, though different patterns emerged at Ryerson and at Iowa State, and moral desirability influenced judgments primarily for the Indigenous suspect. Consistent with Olson and Wells’ (2004) taxonomy, Experiment 1 showed that the strength of the physical evidence supporting an alibi is a primary determinant of judgments of its credibility. In Experiment 3, participants provided less favourable ratings for the Indigenous defendant than the White defendant, particularly when they already had more negative general feelings about Indigenous people, though this was not found in Experiment 2. More participants signed the petition when the alibi was morally desirable at Iowa State, and for the Indigenous suspect. Across all studies, higher scores on the ACT’s Authoritarianism subscale were associated with responses that were less favourable for the suspect/defendant, and many participants did not accurately define the term “alibi.” Understanding the complexities of decision-making in this context will help us better understand why some (honest) alibis are rejected, and how stereotypes and assumptions regarding the alibi provider may lead to bias in the investigation and adjudication of criminal cases.

scholarly journals Is an alibi a paper shield? An investigation of the factors that influence alibi credibility judgments

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Newspaper Article ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Physical Evidence ◽  
Evidence Strength ◽  
Primary Determinant ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
Life Inventory

Alibis are a potentially powerful piece of evidence for innocence, but examination of criminal cases suggests that honestly offered alibis may fail to prevent wrongful convictions. Currently, little is known regarding how evaluators judge the credibility of alibis. Three studies investigated the effect of alibi moral desirability, suspect race (White/Indigenous Canadian), alibi evidence strength, and Authoritarianism on participants’ legal judgments. Participants read a fictitious police file (Experiment 1: N = 300; Experiment 2: N = 286) or newspaper article (Experiment 3: N =235) and rated a male suspect’s/defendant’s statement honesty, alibi accuracy, and the likelihood of his guilt, among other dependent measures, then completed the Authoritarianism-Conservatism-Traditionalism scale (ACT; Duckitt et al., 2010) and, in Experiment 3, the Revised Religious Life Inventory (Hills et al., 2005). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked to sign a petition supporting the suspect. Results indicated that providing an alibi can be beneficial or detrimental to the suspect, depending on contextual factors and the narrative itself. In Experiments 1 and 2, alibi moral desirability affected participants’ responses, though different patterns emerged at Ryerson and at Iowa State, and moral desirability influenced judgments primarily for the Indigenous suspect. Consistent with Olson and Wells’ (2004) taxonomy, Experiment 1 showed that the strength of the physical evidence supporting an alibi is a primary determinant of judgments of its credibility. In Experiment 3, participants provided less favourable ratings for the Indigenous defendant than the White defendant, particularly when they already had more negative general feelings about Indigenous people, though this was not found in Experiment 2. More participants signed the petition when the alibi was morally desirable at Iowa State, and for the Indigenous suspect. Across all studies, higher scores on the ACT’s Authoritarianism subscale were associated with responses that were less favourable for the suspect/defendant, and many participants did not accurately define the term “alibi.” Understanding the complexities of decision-making in this context will help us better understand why some (honest) alibis are rejected, and how stereotypes and assumptions regarding the alibi provider may lead to bias in the investigation and adjudication of criminal cases.

Do Racial Stereotypes Contribute to Medical Misdiagnosis of Child Abuse?

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-180
Author(s):  
Cynthia J. Najdowski ◽  
Kimberly M. Bernstein ◽  
Katherine S. Wahrer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Child Abuse ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Medical Community ◽  
Protective Services ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Race Bias ◽  
Potential Child ◽  
Black Infant

Despite growing recognition that misdiagnoses of child abuse can lead to wrongful convictions, little empirical work has examined how the medical community may contribute to these errors. Previous research has documented the existence and content of stereotypes that associate race with child abuse. The current study examines whether emergency medical professionals rely on this stereotype to fill in gaps in ambiguous cases involving Black children, thereby increasing the potential for misdiagnoses of child abuse. Specifically, we tested whether the race-abuse stereotype led participants to attend to more abuse-related details than infection-related details when an infant patient was Black versus White. We also tested whether this heuristic decision-making would be affected by contextual case facts; specifically, we examined whether race bias would be exacerbated or mitigated by a family’s involvement with child protective services (CPS). Results showed that participants did exhibit some biased information processing in response to the experimental manipulations. Even so, the race-abuse stereotype and heuristic decision-making did not cause participants to diagnose a Black infant patient with abuse more often than a White infant patient, regardless of his family’s involvement with CPS. These findings help illuminate how race may lead to different outcomes in cases of potential child abuse, while also demonstrating potential pathways through which racial disparities in misdiagnosis of abuse and subsequent wrongful convictions can be prevented.

Other Factors Influencing Religious Vocations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thu T. Do
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Women Religious ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Religious Vocation ◽  
Devotional Practices ◽  
Religious Vocations ◽  
Primary And Secondary School

This chapter presents an overview of aspects that may influence women and men religious on their religious vocational decision during their childhood with their family and parish, their attendance of primary and secondary school, their participation in parish life, and their college years. The influential aspects addressed are: attending Mass regularly and devotional practices, having the opportunity to discuss and receive encouragement from others to discern a religious vocation, the witness of men and women religious, and being engaged in youth and voluntary ministry programs. The chapter concludes that while not every individual religious has opportunities to experience these activities in various environments before he or she decides to enter religious life, all the aspects complement one another and have an impact on religious vocational discernment and decision-making.

scholarly journals Autonomy, Rationality, and Contemporary Bioethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Pugh
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Informed Consent ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Rational Beliefs ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Decision Making Capacity ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
New Framework

Personal autonomy is often lauded as a key value in contemporary Western bioethics, and the claim that there is an important relationship between autonomy and rationality is often treated as an uncontroversial claim in this sphere. Yet, there is also considerable disagreement about how we should cash out the relationship between rationality and autonomy. In particular, it is unclear whether a rationalist view of autonomy can be compatible with legal judgments that enshrine a patient’s right to refuse medical treatment, regardless of whether ‘… the reasons for making the choice are rational, irrational, unknown or even non-existent’. This book brings recent philosophical work on the nature of rationality to bear on the question of how we should understand autonomy in contemporary bioethics. In doing so, the author develops a new framework for thinking about the concept, one that is grounded in an understanding of the different roles that rational beliefs and rational desires have to play in personal autonomy. Furthermore, the account outlined here allows for a deeper understanding of different forms of controlling influence, and the relationship between our freedom to act, and our capacity to decide autonomously. The author contrasts his rationalist account with other prominent accounts of autonomy in bioethics, and outlines the revisionary implications it has for various practical questions in bioethics in which autonomy is a salient concern, including questions about the nature of informed consent and decision-making capacity.

scholarly journals Lapses in perceptual decisions reflect exploration

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sashank Pisupati ◽  
Lital Chartarifsky-Lynn ◽  
Anup Khanal ◽  
Anne K Churchland
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Motor Cortex ◽  
Reward Magnitude ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Strategic Trade ◽  
Evidence Strength ◽  
Constant Rate ◽  
Brain States

Perceptual decision-makers often display a constant rate of errors independent of evidence strength. These 'lapses' are treated as a nuisance arising from noise tangential to the decision, e.g. inattention or motor errors. Here, we use a multisensory decision task in rats to demonstrate that these explanations cannot account for lapses' stimulus dependence. We propose a novel explanation: lapses reflect a strategic trade-off between exploiting known rewarding actions and exploring uncertain ones. We tested this model's predictions by selectively manipulating one action's reward magnitude or probability. As uniquely predicted by this model, changes were restricted to lapses associated with that action. Finally, we show that lapses are a powerful tool for assigning decision-related computations to neural structures based on disruption experiments (here, posterior striatum and secondary motor cortex). These results suggest that lapses reflect an integral component of decision-making and are informative about action values in normal and disrupted brain states.

Managing Efficiency and Thoroughness in Case Review

2019 ◽  
pp. 255-282
Author(s):  
Carolyn Hoyle ◽  
Mai Sato
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Case Review ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Formal Knowledge ◽  
Legal Coercion ◽  
Decision Frames

This chapter examines the Criminal Cases Review Commission's decision-making process through the lens of efficiency and thoroughness. It first considers the ‘sense-making’ process of gathering and interpreting information within the Commission and how the Commission prioritises cases before discussing the Commission's formal ‘knowledge-building’ based on expert evidence and complainant credibility, along with its cultural knowledge. It then analyses the Commission's field that sets the boundaries of the scope of organisational enquiry, the decision frames that help individual decision-makers to operationalise the concepts of thoroughness and efficiency, and the key performance indicators used to measure the Commission's success. It also explores the amount of ‘empirical’ investigation beyond ‘desktop’ reviews carried out by case review managers (CRMs) and the use of section 17 powers to obtain information from external bodies and experts. Finally, it explains how the Commission secures compliance without resorting to legal coercion.

The Nature of Applications to the Commission

2019 ◽  
pp. 68-84
Author(s):  
Carolyn Hoyle ◽  
Mai Sato
Keyword(s):  
Expert Testimony ◽  
Human Error ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
Process Failures

This chapter examines the nature of applications for wrongful convictions that the Criminal Cases Review Commission receives and the kinds of issues raised by applicants. It highlights the potential flaws of applications presented to the Commission, such as those relating to investigations conducted by police and prosecutors. It also reviews the extant literature on the sources of wrongful conviction to explain the range of possible misconduct and legal, scientific, or human error that might lead to an applicant being wrongfully convicted, or to believing themselves to be so. A number of sex cases and ‘expert evidence’ cases are discussed to illustrate the fallibility of witnesses, vulnerable suspects, the fallibility of science and expert testimony, due process failures, and the pervasive influence of prejudice and fear. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the changing nature of wrongful convictions over the past decade or two.

A Fuzzy Multicriteria Decision-Making Approach to Crime Linkage

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumendra Goala ◽  
Palash Dutta
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Linkage Analysis ◽  
Distance Measure ◽  
Multicriteria Decision Making ◽  
High Volume ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Multicriteria Decision ◽  
Fuzzy Distance ◽  
Crime Linkage

This article describes how serial crimes are very interesting for study in the absence of proper and solid evidence. From a high volume of criminal cases of similar types, it is difficult to detect the crimes that were committed by the same offender or not. The process of linking of crimes which were committed by the same offender or offenders is called Crime Linkage Analysis. In this article, a new hesitant fuzzy distance measure has been introduced and a fuzzy multicriteria decision-making approach has been proposed to help Crime Linkage Analysis, which enables us to find to what extent a pair of crime shares a common offender or offenders.

scholarly journals Machine learning for determining accurate outcomes in criminal trials

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-65
Author(s):  
Jane Mitchell ◽  
Simon Mitchell ◽  
Cliff Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Judicial Process ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Potential Applications

Abstract Advances in mathematical and computational technologies have brought unique and ground-breaking benefits to diverse fields throughout society (engineering, medicine, economics, etc.). Within legal systems, however, the potential applications of data science and innovative mathematical tools have yet to be embraced with the same ambition. The complex decision-making that is needed for reaching just verdicts is often seen as out of reach for such approaches and, in the case of criminal trials, this inhibits exploration into whether machine learning could have a positive impact. Here, through assigning numerical scores to prosecution and defence evidence, and employing an approach based on dimensionality reduction, we showed that evidence strands presented at historical murder trials could be used to train effective machine-learning algorithms (or models). We tested the evidence quantification approach with the trained model and showed that, through machine learning, criminal cases could be clearly classified (probability >99.9%) as belonging to either a guilty or a not-guilty category. The classification was found to be as expected for all test cases. All guilty test cases that were not wrongful convictions were correctly assigned to the guilty category by our model and, crucially, test cases that were wrongful convictions were correctly assigned to the not-guilty category. This work demonstrated the potential for machine learning to benefit criminal trial decision-making, and should motivate further testing and development of the model and datasets for assisting the judicial process.

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